Chapter 2. Dawning Realisations

Farry was roused from dazed stupor by the telltale creak of the door, but this time instead of a small slit of light, cast from a cautiously shuttered lantern, there was a broad sweep of brightness that blasted into his eyes, causing him to wince, to turn his face away, though he forced his eyes to slits as quickly as he might and squinted into the light.

A gasp came from the dark figure that was silhouetted against the light, and Farry heard his cousin say, ‘Pip! Where are the guardsmen?’

Taller than Pippin-lad Gamgee, whom Farry had last seen straining to pull free from a guardsman’s grasp, screaming Farry’s name, as a ruffian bore Farry down to the boats. Shorter than a Man, and tall enough to be... but Farry’s hopes deflated as the shadowy figure spoke in a child’s whisper. ‘It’s true!’

And in a rush the figure had crossed the distance from the doorway to the sacks lying haphazardly against the back wall of a ramshackle shed, the hobbits tucked amongst them. A boy, it was, who had seen perhaps ten years, the light behind him shining on unruly locks, though his face was in shadow as he fell to his knees before them. ‘True!’ he gasped.

‘Help us!’ Farry rasped. ‘Please!’

‘Little folk... I’d scarcely have believed it,’ the lad whispered. He put a gentle hand on Farry’s shoulder, and then drew back suddenly, as if he thought better of it. But Farry saw his head move up and down, as if greedy eyes were taking them in from head to foot, and the whisper confirmed it. ‘Little men, not even as tall as me,’ he said, ‘just as Grandfather used to tell. Green and grey their clothing, and cheeks as broad and rosy as apples...

Farry didn’t feel very rosy at that moment. ‘Please,’ he repeated. ‘Water...’

His eyes were growing used to the light streaming in, and he could see the lad bite his lip. ‘Please,’ he said again.

‘Water,’ Ferdi whispered beside him, and the boy looked from one hobbit to the other and rose abruptly.

‘No tricks now,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bring water!’

‘No tricks,’ Farry said. What did the boy expect, that they would sprout wings, trussed as they were, and fly away?

Though it seemed an eternity, the boy was back quickly, with something in his hands that sloshed in a way that was torture to Farry’s ears, thirsty as he was. But in another moment the boy was dipping a tin cup into a bucket half-full of fresh-drawn water, and holding it to Farry’s lips, and the hobbit drank so greedily that he choked.

‘Steady now,’ the boy reproved, pulling the cup away.

Farry coughed and choked and caught his breath and then he strained forward. ‘It’s good,’ he said, ‘More? Please?’ And then remembering, he forced himself to turn his face to the side. ‘My cousin, as well—please?’

And even as he savoured the lingering feel of cool, fresh wetness in his mouth, he watched the boy dip the cup and hold it to Ferdi’s lips. The older hobbit sipped more cautiously, then swallowed greedily, draining the cup with a gusty sigh and breath of thanks.

Farry accepted a second cupful, and feeling more hopeful about matters, he said, ‘Now if you would be so kind as to untie us...’

‘No!’ the boy said, starting back. ‘The little folk are a tricksy folk, as we were oft told. They can be bound by ropes, but unbound, if you take your eyes away for a second they’ll disappear in a twinkling!’

It is true, hobbits have a talent for hiding themselves quickly, though Farry thought the shed presented dim prospects for a proper game of “I hide and you seek me”.

‘But my cousin is hurt,’ he pressed. ‘His arm...’ In the light of day that streamed in through the door, the damage to Ferdi’s shoulder was all too evident.

The boy looked and gave a low whistle. ‘That’s why Turbor was able to capture you so easily,’ he said. ‘I wondered what he was up to, sneaking out in the middle of the night. I watched him go into the shed. And he’s been even more cheerful than usual, since he came back from fishing yesterday.’

‘Turbor?’ Farry said. ‘Is he the wretch who left us tied up here without food or water?’

‘My brother,’ the boy said, his tone defiant. ‘My oldest brother. He’s as strong as an ox, they say, but the kindest, simplest soul you can imagine. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘But Little Folk are another matter,’ Ferdi said.

‘They’re tricksy!’ the boy maintained. ‘And magical. They cannot really be hurt... my grandfather told me of finding a very old and ugly one pinned beneath a tree that had fallen in a storm the night before, and after he’d used rope and ox to free him, the creature vanished in a twinkling with only a curse and a “gollum” deep in his throat.’

Farry shuddered at this, and Ferdi looked grave.

‘He always said he ought to have bound the creature first, before lifting the tree, and then it would have led him to the treasure. It kept babbling that it would give him a present if he’d lift off the tree, but it didn’t give him anything except for a nasty bite on his hand that festered for weeks.’ He peered suspiciously at the two hobbits.

‘I haven’t bit anyone lately,’ Ferdi said irascibly, ‘and I promise not to, if you’ll only undo these ropes.’

‘And he is hurt; surely you can see that,’ Farry said. ‘We might be small folk, it’s true, but we’re not magical; we’re not those Little Folk who sour the milk and hide treasure in their boots,’ (he’d heard some of the legends told by Men before the hearth of a stormy night) '—we haven’t even got any boots!’

The boy looked at the hobbits’ furry feet in astonishment. ‘But...’ he said slowly, as if absorbing a new thought. ‘But haven’t you got any treasure?’

‘No,’ Ferdi began, but Farry spoke over the top of him, from his knowledge of the legends.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At home, a long way from here. Too far for us to go and fetch anything, believe me. We are friends of the King, on our way to Minas Tirith, and we didn’t bring any treasure with us as the King certainly has enough of his own.’

Ferdi shot a look of astonishment at the son of the Thain, but the boy was nodding.

‘Perhaps you aren’t Little Folk after all,’ he said. ‘They always claim to be poor as field mice in the wintertime, and deny that they have any treasure at all.’

‘We’re not!’ Farry affirmed. ‘We’re hobbits, whom the Men of the South call “Halflings”.’

‘Halflings!’ the boy said. ‘But I’ve heard of Halflings! Great warriors, they are, whose faces shine with goodness; and doers of great deeds.’ He peered from one hobbit to the other. ‘You don’t look a bit like Halflings.’